by: digital camera world
Most photographers take a portrait shot at some point. You might not think of it as such, you might think of it as a holiday photo, documentary photography shot or a family photo, but if there’s a person in it, it’s also portrait photography.
People photos can be particularly tricky to get right because many subjects have strong ideas about how they do and don’t want to appear, and not all are comfortable in front of the camera.
In this article our head of testing, Angela Nicholson, explains some of the common mistakes that photographers make when shooting portraits and explains how to avoid them.
Portrait Photography Mistake No. 1: Shooting wide
Although you can produce really funky shots with a wide-angle lens, few of them tend to find favour with the subjects.
Wide-angle lenses make close subjects look much bigger than those that are further away and with a portrait this can mean a big nose, above a receding chin, on a small face with tiny eyes.
It’s far more flattering to shoot from a little further away and use a longer lens as this will help keep the sitter’s facial features in proportion.
While an effective focal length of 50mm (or wider) lens may be a good choice for an environmental portrait, where the subject is in their workplace, for example, and you’re not too close, something a little longer, perhaps around 70-85mm, is often regarded as a good choice for head and shoulders shot.
Don’t forget, that a 50 mm lens is equivalent to around 75 mm on and an APS-C format SLR, so your standard prime lens can be an excellent choice.
Longer telephoto lenses also work well, although you’ll need to stand further away so you need more space to work in.
Using a longer lens has the added advantage of restricting depth of field so the background is blurred slightly putting greater emphasis on your subject.
Portrait Photography Mistake No. 2: Eyes not sharp
As a general rule the eyes in a portrait image should be sharp. This is especially important if you’re shooting with the aperture wide open to restrict depth of field.
Shallow depth of field is a great way of directing the viewer’s attention towards the subject, and if the wrong part of the image is sharp that’s where the viewer will look.
With a portrait this means that it’s no good focusing on the sitter’s nose, the focus point needs to be right on one of the eyes.
If you normally let the camera select the autofocus point for you, it’s time to take control and set it yourself. Your camera manual will explain exactly how to do this, but look for an option called something like one point or one area auto focusing.
Alternatively, if your subject isn’t moving you could try focusing manually. In this case it’s worth using your camera’s live view mode and composing the image on screen with the camera on a tripod.
It’s usually possible to magnify part of the scene so that you can be sure that the focus is spot-on. With a portrait you want to magnify the eyes and focus on them.
An added advantage of shooting with the camera on a tripod and composing the image on the camera’s screen is that it’s easier to engage your subject in conversation, helping them to relax and making the shoot almost incidental.
Portrait Photography Mistake No. 3: Too much depth of field
As alluded to previously, selecting a small aperture to create extensive depth of field isn’t always a good idea with a portrait.
If the background is busy or cluttered it may distract from your subject. Choosing a wider aperture, for example if/5.6 will often produce better results.
Even if the background isn’t heavily blurred, restricting the depth of field a little separates your subject from the surroundings giving them greater dominance in the shot.
If you find that the background isn’t as blurred as you would like, ask your subject to step forward, increasing the distance between them and it.
You could also switch to a longer focal length lens as this will result in less depth of field at the same aperture, although you will have to move further away from your subject to maintain the same composition.
Portrait Photography Mistake No. 4: Unusual headwear
One of the all-time classic errors when shooting people is to not pay enough attention to the background and as a result end up with shots that have lampposts, trees or flagpoles sticking out of the top people’s heads.
It may be possible to avoid this by shooting with a wide aperture to blur the background, but it’s often just a case of taking a few steps to one side of the other to give them a different background.
Portrait Photography Mistake No. 5: Depth of field to shallow
While restricting depth of field in a portrait can be very effective, if you shoot wide open with an 85mm f/1.8 lens the depth of field may be so shallow that only the eyes are in focus, while the ears are soft.
This means that you need to be extremely careful with your focusing, and if you want a little more than the contact lenses on your subject’s eyes to be sharp, you may want to consider closing the aperture down a little.
Be sure to check your images at or near the size that you want to use them, or enlarge the image on the camera’s screen when you review it to check the focus and depth of field.
It can be hard to assess depth of field in thumbnails and when the image is squeezed onto the back of the camera, out of ofcus areas often look sharper than they actually are.
Portrait Photography Mistake No. 6: Shooting from the wrong height
The definition of ‘wrong height’ varies depending upon the subject and the context of the image, but it can help you produce better results if you shoot at your subject’s eye-level.
With children this may mean kneeling down or even lying with your elbows on the floor.
Conversely, if you want to take a quick shot that emphasises how small they are, then shoot from above.
Many portrait photographers advise against shooting from below your subjects eye level, because it can lead to double chins and up-nostril views.
Traditionally, women and children were always shot from slightly above with them looking up to emphasise their eyes and make them look more appealing, but these guidelines are less relevant today.
Portrait Photography Mistake No. 7: Harsh shadows
An example of harsh shadows
In some cases strong shadows may make image, but in many situations you want to try and soften the light and reduce the impact of shadows.
If you’re shooting in strong sunlight you might want to find a more shady position for your subject.
Alternatively, you could use a diffuser held above your subject, to soften the light.
A burst of flash, preferably from an off-camera flashgun, can also work wonders, filling in shadows and giving the image boost. And putting a little sparkle in the eyes.
The rapid falloff of flash also means that it is easy to darken the background a little if you want, putting greater emphasis on your subject.
Portrait Photography Mistake No. 8: Redeye
One of the dangers of using the flash on your camera is that the light is very close to the lens and this can result in light from the flash being bounced back of your subject’s retina and into the camera causing the phenomena we know as redeye.
Anti-redeye flash settings that fire a pre-flash can help by closing your subjects irises down so that less light enters their eyes and bounces back, but the best cure is to move the flash away from the lens.
Portrait Photography Mistake No. 9: Too much detail
While you want your subject’s eyes to be sharp, you don’t want to emphasise any flaws in their skin, for example.
If you shoot only JPEG images look for a Natural or Neutral colour setting and use that rather than Standard or Vibrant, which may saturate colours, especially red and draw attention to pimples etc.
Better still, shoot raw files and process them carefully paying attention to the skin tone and keeping saturation down (but not so they look ill.
You may also want spend a little bit of time sympathetically retouching the portrait to deal with any blemishes or pimples.
Be sparing with the level of sharpening that you apply to the image (in-camera or post-capture) and if possible sharpen selectively when processing the image, targeting the eyes and hair while leaving the skin unsharpened.
Conversely, don’t get carried away with the retouching so the skin looks plastic on the subject barely recognises themself.
Portrait Photography Mistake No. 10: Too far away
One of the most common errors made by novice photographers is to stand too far away from the subject and not zoom in sufficiently with the lens.
With portrait photography taken outside this can often mean huge empty areas around the subject with a vast sky above them and acres of ground beneath them, when in fact head and shoulders portrait would work much better.
That’s not to say that full-length portraits don’t work, they just need a little more thought than many people give them.
Although going closer can often result in better portraits, beware going over the top and producing a passport photo, a tight head-shot from the neck up.
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